3 out of 5

I’m not keeping tabs on ThunderCats in any way, but this looks to be setup for an event in the comic world of that IP, presumably introducing a league of Thundera-threatening villains across a series of character-focused one-shots. And yes, you can assume from the title that this is a Cheetara-focused issue.

…Which has a good structural pitch, but I think not enough pages to really make it work perfectly, with artist David Cousens’ loose style a lot of fun, but also not lain out distinctively enough to make some of those structured beats land. AKA good idea, okay execution.

So: a fourth-wall breaking splash page opens things, showing us repeated word bubbles stating Cheetara’s personal mantra while the character is literally covered by those word bubbles; in the corner, a narration box reads: “The writer is a liar.” It’s a good hook! though I’d criticize from the start that the word bubbles are crowded to the point of making your eyes blur over the concept, and Cheetara as a Where’s Waldo-esque figure feels like something to build up to instead of start with. Like, making her the center figure surrounded by the bubbles would have been thematically in line and easier to “read,” but that’s me prescribing. I just think its conceptually neat, but again, an executional misalignment.

Iterate this forward: the book is split up into two repeating cycles of Cheetara awakening from a dream, then going about her day: in part as a commoner / warrior, in part as a politician of sorts. I think Cousens and colorist Roshan Kurichiyanil (+Arancia Studio) do this well in the first cycle, showing Cheetara’s wakened shock effectively, cast in shadows and then juxtaposed against a zoomed out view of her room, being lit from an opened window. But the second instance doesn’t have enough space / color to play around with, and isn’t as impactful. As to the cycles’ contents, the first half feels like filler, unfortunately, just to give us some action, and to have something playing underneath the split structure. The second half – Cheetara discovers her foe through her mind-reading – is clunky. Whether the decision of letterer Jeff Eckleberry or as per writer Nate Cosby, a device used to show one character talking over Cheetara is just kind of visually distracting, and Cosby’s decision to use the device again and again is noxious, since the whole pitch is that Cheetara is overwhelmed by reading others’ thoughts, and this one character is supposed to be silent in comparison.

Now, with all that negativity done, I think this is a fun issue. The action distraction is a good distraction – big monsters, big stabby – and the juxtaposition versus Cheetara dressed up and attending a political to-do is interesting. The “The writer is a liar” narration is solid, letting the speaker’s cynicism show without being too overwrought, and I do quite live Cousens’ overall loose approach, with occasional hand-drawn panels really selling some chaos towards the end. And while the “I’m a big baddie with a world-destroying secret plan” set up is… like every single one of these crossovers ever, if I was at all invested in ThunderCats, I’d be down; a round robin of one-shots where we meet the villains is a good time.